By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service
RICHMOND, Va. – It’s been the ultimate celebratory week for TRICON Garage driver Kaden Honeycutt who absolutely dominated the weather-delayed Black’s Tire 250 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race at Richmond (Va.) Raceway Saturday afternoon – the strong winning effort coming only days after the 23-year-old Texan announced he and his wife Jessica were expecting their first child.
Honeycutt led 225 of the 250 laps at the .75-mile track—the most laps he’s ever led in a single race—surpassing his 59 laps out front at Darlington, S.C. earlier this year and more laps led than in all his 75 previous series races combined. And for the first time in his career, he swept both stage wins as well.
Ultimately Honeycutt’s No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota crossed the line a healthy 1.313-seconds ahead of his teammate, reigning series champion, Corey Heim in the team’s No. 5 Toyota Tundra. After a series of late race pit stops, Honeycutt reclaimed the lead with 29 laps remaining and never looked back.
His strong day broke a long-tenured Richmond race pattern where the driver who leads the most laps does not typically win the race. Honeycutt was strong early and often…at one point holding the lead position for a 195-lap stretch.
This marks his second career win and second of the season and trims Saturday’s 15th place finisher, Front Row Motorsports driver Layne Riggs’ championship lead to 61 points heading into the regular season finale next week at New Hampshire.
The victory is also significant for Honeycutt’s veteran crew chief Scott Zippadelli, who now claims 38 career series victories, second all-time to Eric Phillips 44-trophy haul.
“Man, we never give up,’’ Honeycutt said. “We’ve had a rough last couple weeks and just wondered what the heck was going on. We’re not a seventh place, tenth place team and it’s all thanks to [crew chief] Scott Zippadelli and everyone on this 11-team.
“We just stay on it. We don’t give up and I just can’t thank everyone enough. What a dominant day. I’ve never been able to do something like that before so really good confidence for me and hopefully we can go to Loudon (N.H.) and do the same thing next week. Just really cool.’’
McAnally-Hilgemann’s Christian Eckes was third in the No. 91 Chevrolet with first-time series pole-winner, New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen finishing fourth in the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet in what will be a Saturday doubleheader as he competes Saturday night here in the NASCAR Cup Series race. Grant Enfinger, who led 22 laps on the day in the No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevrolet, rounded out the top-five.
As so often happens, the Richmond race proved to have a significant impact on the championship standings.
Tyler Ankrum—who came into the race ranked 11th, one position outside the Chase 10-driver championship-eligible field—was dealt a penalty for his No. 18 McAnnally-Hilgemann team having too many men over the pit wall on the opening pit stop of the race. After collecting stage points with an eighth-place finish in the first stage, he started the next stage as the last truck on the lead lap.
Ankrum was able to overcome the situation a mere 20 laps into the run, however, quickly re-passing his primary foe Stewart Friesen (who came into the race 10th in points) before moving to an 11th place finish in Stage 2 and ultimately the race.
Friesen brought out the third and final caution flag crashing by himself with 33 laps remaining and triggering an impactful twist in the standings. Ankrum’s steady work and Friesen’s misfortune—he finished last in the 37-car field—moved Ankrum into that all-important 10th position in the standings.
He’s now 20 points up on Friesen and 21 points over Saturday’s sixth place finisher, ThorSport Racing’s Jake Garcia as the series heads into the regular season finale next week at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway one-miler.
Those three drivers contending for that final Chase transfer position have only four previous starts among them at New Hampshire. Friesen has competed in two races there, his best work was a fifth-place finish back in 2017. He was injured and did not race last Fall. Ankrum and Garcia did race, finishing 11th and 16th respectively, in their only series starts at the New England mile.
ThorSport’s Ty Majeski also survived a hectic afternoon, the former Richmond winner officially locking into the Chase even after going down two laps with tire trouble early in the day. He finished 19th a lap down, but his perseverance on a challenging day was enough to secure his position into the Chase.
Garcia, Front Row Motorsports’ Chandler Smith were sixth and seventh with Spire Motorsports’ 16-year-old Tristan McKee earning an impressive eighth place finish in his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut. TRICON’s Gio Ruggiero and McAnally-Hilgemann’s Daniel Hemric rounded out the top-10 Saturday. Virginian-native Elliott Sadler in the free agent Kaulig Racing Ram finished 32nd.
The regular season finale is set for next Saturday with the Team EJP 175 (1:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The 2025 series champion Heim won last year’s race from pole position.
Interview: Black’s Tire 250 presented by BTS Rewards Winner – Kaden Honeycutt (No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota) –
